"You were hampered with a companion?"
"Of a truth I hardly noticed it," cried Nelly with magnificent falsehood. I seconded her efforts with a shrug and a cunning smile.
"I begin to understand," said the King. "And when my farewell has been said, what then?"
"I thought that it had been said half an hour ago," she exclaimed. "Wasn't it?"
"You were anxious to hear it, and so seemed to hear it," said he uneasily.
She turned to me with a grave face and tender eyes.
"Didn't I tell you here, just now, how the King parted from me?"
I was to take the stage now, it seemed.
"Ay, you told me," said I, playing the agitated lover as best I could. "You told me that—that—but I cannot speak before His Majesty." And I ended in a most rare confusion.